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David Wojahn
David Wojahn (born 1953) is an American poet. Life Youth and education Wojahn was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was educated at the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona. Career Wojahn taught for many years at Indiana University. He has also taught at University of Alabama, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Chicago, University of Houston, and University of New Orleans. In 2003, he joined Virginia Commonwealth University, where he teaches poetry in the Department of English, and has also been the director of Virginia Commonwealth University's Creative Writing Program. He also teaches in the low residency M.F.A. in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Writing Most of Wojahn's poetry is metrical although he also works in free verse, usually addressing political and social issues in American life. He often takes as his subjects moments of significance in popular culture, such as the assassination of John Lennon, the professional decline of Jim Morrison or the drowning of Brian Jones. He has said that he hopes his poetry is considered "activist." "David Wojahn's poems concern themselves with emotive basics: leaving home, watching those we love age and die, the inescapable drone of our mortality," wrote poet Richard Hugo (when choosing Wojahn for the Yale Series of Younger Poets). "Yet as poems, they are far from usual. They help us welcome inside, again and again, the most personal of feelings."Book description at Amazon.com Accessed on June 19, 2007. Wojahn has gone on to publish 7 more books of poetry, all with the University of Pittsburgh Press. Wojahn has also edited a volume of poetry by his late wife, Lynda Hull, entitled The Only World (HarperPerennial, 1995), as well as her more recent Collected Poems (Graywolf, 2006). Recognition Poet Richard Hugo selected Wojahn's debut collection, Icehouse Lights, as a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. * Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference * writing residencies from the Yaddo, and McDowell colonies. * 1987-1988 Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship * Icehouse Lights, also won the Poetry Society of Americ’as William Carlos Williams Book Award. * Glassworks, awarded the Society of Midland Authors’ Award for best volume of poetry * Interrogation Palace: New and Selected Poems 1982-2004, was one of three named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and winner of the O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize from the Folger Shakespeare LibraryUniversity of Pittsburgh Press Accessed on June 19, 2007. * In April 2007, Wojahn was one of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Interrogation Palace.Virginia Commonwealth University press release Accessed on June 17, 2007.Union Institute & University press release Accessed on June 17, 2007 * 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship * National Endowment for the Arts, Fellowship * Illinois Arts Council award * the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, fellowship * William Carlos Williams Award * Celia B. Wagner Award from the Poetry Society of America * Vermont College’s Crowley/Weingarten Award for Excellence in Teaching * George Kent Prize from ''Poetry'' * three Pushcart Prizes.[http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v4n1/nonfiction/wojahn_d/index.htm Blackbird] Accessed June 17, 2007.http://books.google.com/books?id=ADC2AAAACAAJ&dq=David+Wojahn * 2008 he was named VCU’s Outstanding Faculty Award Winnerhttp://www.news.vcu.edu/vcu_view/pages.aspx?nid=2612 * 2008 Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize. Publications Poetry * * * * * * * * Non-fiction * "'The Language of My Former Heart': The Memory-Narrative In Recent American Poetry", Published in Green Mountains Review 1988. * Strange Good Fortune. Arkansas, 2001.University of Arkansas Press. Accessed June 17, 2007. Edited * Profile of Twentieth Century American Poetry (edited with Jack Myers). Southern Illinois University, 1991 * See also *List of U.S. poets References Notes External links ;Poems *"Ochre," suite of poems at Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts v9n2 *David Wojahn profile and 8 poems at the Academy of American Poets *David Wojahn b. 1953 at the Poetry Foundation ;Prose *[http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v10n1/poetry/wojahn_d/beautiful_deep_page.shtml "Good Evening, Beautiful Deep: on Tranströmer's Sorrow Gondola"] at Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts v10n1] *"'In All Them Time Henry Could Not Make Good': Reintroducing John Berryman" at Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts 4:2 ;Books *David Wojahn at Amazon.com ;About *Interview with William Matthews by David Wojahn and James Harms at Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts v4n1 *"Joy to Sorrow, Sorrow to Celebration: An interview with David Wojahn, Cafe MFA, 2014 Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:American poets Category:Virginia Commonwealth University faculty Category:Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty Category:American academics Category:University of Minnesota alumni Category:University of Arizona alumni Category:People from Saint Paul, Minnesota Category:Writers from Minnesota Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:University of Houston faculty Category:University of Alabama faculty Category:University of New Orleans faculty Category:National Endowment for the Arts Fellows